Blog 100 - Easter Island, "The Farrest Place in the World"

(This is my 100th Blog Entry!)

Since flying from Santiago in Chile, we have been spending some idyllic days on Easter Island.

Where is Easter Island? About 1900km from anywhere... a 5 hour flight West of Santiago and 1900 km East of tiny Pitcairn, to be precise. This makes it the most remote place on earth - or as one car sticker said, "Easter Island, The Farrest Place in the World". There are around 5000 people on the island now, but they all stem from 111 survivors of a Smallpox outbreak after colonists came to take over. The name of the Island comes from the date of its discovery by the Dutchman Roggeveen on Easter Sunday in 1722 (the Chilean name "Isla da Pascua" comes from the old Dutch naming "Paasch-Eyland", direct translation being Easter Island.)

It is an incredibly relaxed place. Hanga Roa is the main town where most of the hotels and restaurants are plus a "high street" with a some little supermarkets and half a dozen trucks selling a few fruit, veg and complete pigs. There is tourism, but it's not at all in your face and we have managed to hire bikes, take the full-island tour and see a Polynesian dancing show in the last few days. The water is a beautiful blue (in contrast to Uruguay's brown waters) and very rough as we both found out when trying to swim in a small bay - currents pull you all over the place, so we have repaired to the pool for the rest of our swimming.

Our bike ride was funny. We got excellent mountain bikes with seats that were made for speed, not comfort and after a few kilometres, the road switched from tarmac to dirt-track. First we had to negotiate some pretty huge waterlogged parts of the road and then had to handle the difficulty of sore bums as the road got rougher and rougher! But it was a beautiful way to see the island's simple, green landscape and animal life. We had it explained that there are 4000 horses on the island but almost no trees as at some stage in history, every tree was used up. This is one of the reasons the island is so limited in population - it simply has no resources.

The Island tour took us to see the Moai - those strange heads which are dotted over the island. Over the years, there have been various theories about their origins, and the beauty of it is that nobody really knows. The people of the island have an ancient written language which no-one can decipher, and because of the smallpox epidemic, it left nobody with the knowledge to pass on about the roigin of the Moai.

They are huge heads and torsos, standing around 8-10 metres tall. They were carved at a quarry and manoeuvred across the land into position on platforms which formed locations of tombs in later years. When finished and in place - and considering that they weighed incredible amounts, it's amazing they ever got them in place - the eyes were then placed giving the Moai the spirit or holy Mana. In one location there are 15 of them, looking seriously out to the land with chin up high and dignity oozing from their stance. It is understandable why the islanders would be in awe of these huge, imposing stones.

After some tourists tried to chip off pieces of some of the Moai, the island has become extremely careful to warn tourists to minimise their impact on the land and the stones. They are carved from 80% volcanic lava, not the most enduring, and therefore preserving them is a constant battle. They are also trying to restore many of the fallen Moai, as over the years many have either been pushed over by local warring factions (there was acivil war at some stage) or the platform has been eroded by weather. When they fall, they smash into various pieces and it takes huge work to restore, and the island doesn't have the money or resources to cope. As a result, they warn you on the plane with leaflets and movies, plus with signs all over the island not to touch the stones or walk over the platforms. Despite this, we were amazed to find people wilfully ignoring these warnings in the interests of the perfect photograph - absolutely unbelievable.

Ironically, the biggest enemy of the Moai now is the horse population. They rub up against the stones, of course not knowing the significance, and this is causing erosion too.

On Christmas day, we sat by the pool in 30 degree heat, swimming, reading and eating our makeshift Christmas dinner of bread rolls and cheese (stolen at breakfast), crackers and avocado, cheap sparkling wine, chocolate liqueurs we had bought at the airport and some Isla De Pascua Pan, a kind of local Christmas Bread. In the distance, the church bells alternated between Silent Night and Oh Come All Ye Faithful in perfect harmony, giving us some real Christmas feeling. In the evening we sat and had dinner looking out onto the sea - a very different day to any christmas either of us had ever experienced.

Boxing day, and we walked the 20km round trip to the volcano which has been the source of Easter Island's existence. It is a stunning place, a huge crater with all kinds of greenery and plants growing in it now. We walked around Orongo, the tiny village that existed at the island's tip and marvelled at our luck to be able to see such places. In the evening, my luck ran out - we went to the Kari Kari dancing show (all drums and shaking muscled bodies) and when the section for bringing people from the audience to join in came, I was picked out for the last dance. My horror was complete as my top was whipped off and my t-shirt-tan (very brown arms, lily-white torso) was revealed to all. The glare caused some serious damage for those without sunglasses...

It's been a paradise-like stay and we are so incredibly lucky to be leaving here and flying on to 6 nights in Tahiti.